Human Rights

UN News

Hong Kong urged to drop prosecutions of leading activists, not to silence peaceful protest

13 May 2020
Asia Pacific

Independent UN human rights experts urged Hong Kong authorities on Wednesday to immediately drop the criminal prosecution of 15 pro-democracy activists who participated in peaceful protests across the Special Administrative Region of China last year.

© UNICEF/UN0222683/Izhiman

UN officials call for release of detained Palestinian children amid pandemic

11 May 2020

Three senior United Nations officials in the Middle East are calling for the release of Palestinian children from Israeli-run prisons and detentions centres, saying they are at particular risk of COVID-19 infection.

Frontex/Francesco Malavolta

UN rights office concerned over migrant boat pushbacks in the Mediterranean

8 May 2020
Europe

Restrictions against humanitarians who rescue migrant boats in the central Mediterranean are putting lives at risk and must be lifted immediately, the UN human rights office said on Friday.

UNDP Syria

Syria violence ‘a ticking time-bomb that must not be ignored’: UN human rights chief

8 May 2020
Middle East

As civilian casualties mount across Syria and human rights violations continue unabated, the UN rights chief expressed serious concern on Friday that some parties to the conflict, including ISIL terrorist fighters, may be using the COVID-19 pandemic as “an opportunity to regroup and inflict violence on the population”.  

UN Photo/Cia Pak

Corruption, political blockages, threaten international efforts to help Bosnia and Herzegovina weather coronavirus

6 May 2020

Bosnia and Herzegovina is weathering the COVID-19 outbreak better than some other nations, but there’s a real danger that corruption will undermine global efforts to help it contain the pandemic, the international community’s High Representative to the Western Balkan country told the Security Council on Wednesday.

OCHA/Gemma Cortes

Venezuelans ‘teetering on the brink of survival’ warn UN human rights experts

6 May 2020
Americas

United Nations independent experts demanded on Wednesday that the Venezuelan Government take concrete actions to tackle the devastating impact on basic human rights of the country’s economic crisis.

©UNICEF/Giovanni Diffidenti

Attacks on civilians, arbitrary arrests, top list of abuses in Libya: ICC Prosecutor

5 May 2020
Africa

Unabated violence, particularly in and around the Libyan capital, has now been raging for more than a year, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) told the Security Council in a virtual briefing on Tuesday, warning that war crimes may have been committed.

© UNICEF/Eyas El Baba

UN rights expert urges States to step-up anti-slavery efforts to protect most vulnerable during COVID-19 

5 May 2020
Global

A UN human rights expert urged governments on Tuesday to increase protection for those millions of workers, who due to the COVID-19 pandemic, risk being pushed into exploitative jobs that are tantamount to slavery.
 

UNICEF/Kate Holt

Sudan bans female genital mutilation, UNICEF vows to help support new law

2 May 2020
Africa

The United Nations Childen’s Fund (UNICEF) welcomed the landmark move by Sudan’s transitional government this week to criminalize female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C), with a three-year jail sentence for offenders.

UNDP Bangladesh/Fahad Kaizer

‘Rights and dignity’ of older people must be respected during COVID-19 and beyond

1 May 2020
Global

The COVID-19 fatality rate for people over 80-years-old, is five times the global average, the UN Secretary-General said on Friday, launching a new policy initiative to address this and many other challenges faced by the elderly, during and after the biggest public health crisis to hit the world in a century.